Student housing plan for Hargrove Road site fails to get OK

Tuscaloosa Planning and Zoning Commission votes no for rezoning request

By Jason MortonStaff Writer

Published: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Monday, May 20, 2013 at 11:12 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | It’s now residents 3, developers 0 when it comes to proposals for a student housing complex on Hargrove Road.

After two hours of discussion on Monday, the Tuscaloosa Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-0 to recommend to the City Council that it deny a rezoning request for a tract at 101 and 103 Hargrove Road, where a developer proposed a $20 million complex.

However, the commission did agree — also unanimously — to convert the three parcels of the tract into one large lot.

But it was the rezoning vote that was needed to allow the development, called Aspen Heights, to have a chance before the City Council, which issues final approval on all rezoning decisions.

It’s rare that the City Council goes against the recommendation of the Planning and Zoning Commission in such matters.

“These projects affect our way of life,” said Commission Chairman Steven Rumsey. “Everyone is a stakeholder in some shape, form or fashion.”

The proposal was the third since 2011 that sought to house college students on the 17.96-acre site.

The first was The Standard at Tuscaloosa, a $30 million, 205-unit complex with 646 bedrooms that the City Council rejected in November 2011.

Soon after that, Tuscaloosa developer Stan Pate, under a company he called Dead Reckoning, proposed a similar development that he said would have contained between 650 and 850 bedrooms.

But Pate withdrew his petition before the council had a chance to vote on it, saying that his efforts were being thwarted by a growing liberalism in City Hall.

“The new staff at the city of Tuscaloosa has turned the community toward a very liberal agenda with property owners’ rights and free markets becoming second to ‘government knows best,’ ” Pate said then.

Now, the 149-unit, 473-bedroom Aspen Heights development appears dead on arrival before the City Council.

Local attorney Matt Tompkins, who spoke on behalf of the Texas-based development company, said it would take 149 units to justify the investment and make the project profitable.

“The density pretty much has to be what it is in order to support itself,” Tompkins said.

Unlike previous proposals, Aspen Heights is planning a series of ­free-standing structures resembling cottages to house multiple four-bedroom units.

But neighbors still decried the plan, saying it has too many residents for the area.

This is common refrain from nearby residents who, for each proposed development, have turned out in large numbers to oppose them.

Leading the charge against the developments were members of the Forest Lake neighborhood, which starts across Hargrove Road from the site and extends to 15th Street.

Robert Parsons, president of the Forest Lake Homeowners Association, said he and the group he represents were opposed to the Aspen Heights development for the same reason he and the group had opposed the others.

It’s too many people and, as a result, will put too much of a strain on the surrounding roads, he said.

“The city cannot allow the tail to wag the dog here,” Parsons said.

The cost of the development should influence the project’s housing density.

Of the 13 speakers who spoke before the planning commission, almost everyone opposed the development. Some pointed to the traffic increases, although Birmingham-based Skipper Consulting offered a number of recommendations that could minimize the impact. Other speakers pointed out the number and type of people the development would bring to an area surrounded by traditional neighborhoods.

“We already have a tremendous traffic problem there now,” said Joe Ballard of Hargrove Road.

But some said the city should stop halting the developments since similar plans continue to be proposed for the land.

“Four hundred seventy-three beds on 17 acres doesn’t sound like a lot of density too me,” said Camilla Park resident Tommy Nix. “Sometimes, the best decision is not always the most popular decision.”

But it was Brenda Chambliss, a representative of the Chambliss family that has owned this land for decades, who questioned how a group of people who can’t see her family’s property can be permitted to have such an influence on how it’s used.

“I’m not sure why Forest Lake has such a big say-so in this,” Chambliss said. “And I find it very presumptuous that people will come in and tell developers they don’t know what they’re doing.

“This is our seventh attempt to do something with this property that has been in our family. We want to see something really productive out there,” she said.